Reuters – The Cairo bourse, which dropped 2.7% last Thursday after Sisi said he would run for president, fell a further 1.9% on Sunday to trim 2014 gains to 19%. But there were signs the correction was slowing and the market closed above the intraday low. “Towards the end of today we saw a bit …

Reuters – Dubai’s Emaar Properties plans to list its shopping malls and retail unit in both Dubai and London, the company’s chairman Mohamed Alabbar was quoted as saying on Tuesday. “This will be a dual listing. We are a Dubai company so we have to be in Dubai, but we will list in London. I …

Reuters – A real estate investment trust, Emirates REIT, said on Tuesday that it planned to raise at least AED 500 million dirhams ($135m) in Dubai’s first initial public offer of shares since 2009. The company will use proceeds from its IPO on the Nasdaq Dubai bourse for possible future acquisitions and investment in existing …

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Reuters – Global shipments of personal computers fell 9.8% last year, the worst contraction on record, and are likely to decline by 6.1% in 2014 due to lackluster demand in developing countries, according to market research firm IDC. IDC had expected PC shipments to fall 10.1% last year but it said that the fourth quarter …

Reuters – Bahrain’s Al Salam Bank has launched a listed sharia-compliant real estate investment trust (REIT) that will invest in a portfolio of Asian properties, the lender said on Tuesday. The REIT will invest in between 15 and 35 properties and be managed by Swiss-based B&I Capital AG, with Al Salam providing seed capital for …

Reuters – Kuwait’s Zain has finalised an $800m, five-year loan facility from 11 banks, the telecommunications operator said on Tuesday. Zain, which has operations in eight countries in the Middle East and Africa including Sudan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, said it originally planned to raise $600m, but increased the facility’s size because of what it …

Reuters – The Egyptian pound was steady at a central bank foreign currency sale on Monday and remained unchanged on the black market. The central bank sold $38.6m to banks with a cut-off price of EGP 6.9508 to the dollar, fractionally stronger than the cut-off price of EGP 6.9509 from Monday’s auction. The bank had …

Reuters – Dubai builder Arabtec on Wednesday denied that it planned to acquire Kuwaiti construction firm Kharafi National. Sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters on Monday that Arabtec had been in talks with Kharafi National, part of the Kharafi Group, to fully acquire the company. On Monday, both Arabtec and Kharafi declined to comment. …

In late 2013, Thomson Reuters conducted a poll ranking Egypt the worst country among 22 Arab League states for women’s rights. The poll measured women’s status in six different categories. First, “Women in politics” calculated women’s civil representation and presence in high public positions. “Women in society” measured tradition and cultural expectations and limitations of …

Reuters – Saudi Arabia’s economy chugged along at modest annual growth rates of around 2.5% in the first three quarters of 2013. Then in the fourth quarter it soared, with gross domestic product jumping 10% from a year earlier. That is the picture delivered by data from the government’s statistics office. But it is not …

Reuters – Arabtec Holding, Dubai’s largest listed construction firm, is in the advanced stages of talks to fully acquire a construction company in Kuwait’s Kharafi Group, two sources aware of the discussions said. The Dubai firm is in talks with Kharafi National, a Kuwait-based contractor and facilities management firm which has operations in several Middle …

Egypt’s army-backed government is trying to attract foreign money back into the country and create jobs to ease social discontent as it manages the biggest Arab nation’s difficult transition to elections this year.

Reuters – Pioneers Holding plans to acquire a 60% stake in real estate investment firm Roaya Group by the end of the first quarter of this year, Waleed Zaki, the firm’s chief executive told Reuters in an interview. The deal is expected to cost around EGP 1bn ($144m), he said. Pioneers specialises in brokerage services, …

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Reuters – EFG Hermes, one of the largest investment banks in the Middle East, is seeking to expand its assets under management in Egypt by 25% this year, a senior executive said on Tuesday. Nabil Moussa, head of asset management for EFG in Egypt, told reporters that of the $3bn in assets the bank manages …

Reuters – Egypt’s central bank said on Tuesday it would allocate EGP 10bn ($1.44bn) for low-cost housing projects, one of the demands in protests that led to the ouster of autocratic President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Better living conditions, an end to official corruption and more democratic rights figured prominently in those protests. About half …

Reuters – Bankers and academics in Italy are stepping up efforts to develop Islamic finance in the country, a campaign which could benefit from growing economic links between Gulf countries and the euro zone’s third largest economy. Islamic finance has so far made only marginal progress in continental Europe, mainly in France and Germany. But …